IT WAS JULY of last year when Ireland moved to the top of World Rugby’s official rankings. This was after they’d beaten New Zealand twice on Kiwi soil to seal their first-ever series win there.
France had won the Grand Slam that year but Ireland’s exploits on the other side of the world held great weight.
Andy Farrell’s men haven’t lost a game since. Their most recent defeat was that strange day in the first Test against the All Blacks when every bouncing ball seemed to pop up into Kiwi hands and Ireland were beaten 42-19.
Ireland responded by securing the series in style. Since then they’ve also beaten Australia, Fiji, South Africa, Wales, France, Italy, Scotland, England, Italy again, England again, and Samoa.
So they bring a 13-game winning streak into this World Cup, a record for Ireland. They should extend it against Romania today in Bordeaux, but the Irish players have come to realise how their success breeds intent and ambition in their opposition.
Their World Cup warm-up form was a little patchy and Peter O’Mahony says that might not be the worst thing for this group.
“We’ve missed a few beats certainly over the last few weeks, but I think a lot of it has been good for us,” says O’Mahony, who had strapping on his left ankle at yesterday’s captain’s run.
“Not that we needed a reality check but it’s just been a reminder, which is great before a World Cup, that teams are going to be at their very, very best, and particularly now that we are world number one, we’ve a big target on our back. There’s no point in putting it otherwise.
“Every team you play is going to be at their very best to try and knock you over and I think it was a good reminder for us over the last few weeks of the different types of games and the way to approach them, that we need to be all over things from minute one to minute 80.
“I think we took some great lessons from it and I think the guys put in some huge performances.
“There were parts of our game that we were really impressed with and happy with, that we need to keep building on, but we found some areas that, ‘These were really good 18 months ago lads, but we need to get back to them a little bit and have a little review on them,’ which we’ve done over the last few days and weeks.
“So, I think that’s exactly what we wanted out of those games to prepare us for these next few weeks and beyond, and I think it [the three warm-up games] went the way we thought it was going to go.”
As Ireland look to extend their record winning streak, O’Mahony is closing in on a big milestone of his own.
Today will be his 97th Ireland cap, so he could become a centurion during this World Cup, joining Johnny Sexton, Keith Earls, and Conor Murray in the club.
Typically enough, he hasn’t given it much thought.
“It’s not something that I’m going to be worried about, certainly over the next two or three days,” says O’Mahony, who is at openside against Romania.
“Obviously, we can talk about it at some other point but at the moment it’s certainly performance-based, training-based, the same stuff you’ve heard all the time from us but that’s the way we operate and that’s the way we have to operate.
“That’s the way we’re battling on.”
No better man to lead the fight.
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